22 gennaio 2010

In december I went to Milan to pitch my start-up project (www.agrycult.com in partnership with Francesco Travaglini) before a jury of experts who will eventually decide which, among the projects presented, will be endorsed and financed.

It is a competition for entrepreneurs called Working Capital, and similar to the many already taking place in USA, UK, France and other "developed" countries (Techcrunch50, Seedcamp, LeWeb, to name a few). It is sponsored by Telecom Italia with a few million €.

In one of my post a few weeks ago I was complaining about the venture capital situation here in Italy. I quote again Mike Butcher from Techcrunch:

"There are almost literally no VCs in Italy, and what investors there are tend to to be Angels or corporate investors only interested in e-commerce startups which hit revenues almost from the word go. Web 2.0 style startups are almost completely non-existent there. CrunchBase lists only a handful of companies, although of course that’s probably not definitive."

Well this competition shows that at least something in Italy is moving and, more importantly, that there are hundreds, thousands of aspiring innovative entrepreneurs who are responding well and lively to these spurs.

A Country has to believe in its best asset: its young innovative entrepreneurs. Otherwise, they or they will go abroad to look for better opportunities or, worse, they could not have the opportunity or will to develop their potential, anymore (simply because, for example, they must accept a compromise-job to get a living).

13 gennaio 2010

The other day I heard on the Italian TV (RAI) a news service reporting about the recent wave of bad weather which damaged the harvest and threats to push up fruit and vegetables prices. Then, there was this interview with an exultant top-manager of a food industry association (I believe it was Coldiretti) who said something like" I would like to reassure the people at home that prices will not go up for the moment: the fruit and vegetetables they are eating come from our refrigerated stocks".

I wonder whether he was more exultant because the prices would not go up or because the Industry succeed in fooling to pay as "fresh" produce which have been picked up weeks ago.... :-(

And, to my international reader: Be aware this is not an italian thing, it affects the food chain worldwide, where the Industry rules and decides what is fresh, what is not, and what should arrive to our table: if you don't believe me, I suggest you to watch this movie: Food Inc. But be careful: after watching it, you may not want to go to the supermarket anymore...

It is managed by Franco Valente, architect and man of culture (among many other things), who has a deep passion for the land where we both live (Molise).

And he's able to communicate this passion to his blog readers, very well. On his blog you will find, among other things, this post about weddings in Molise from the '30s (where I took the picture above from), a funny post about spelling mistakes of marble cutters of the past, this post about Roman Anphiteaters in place you'd never suspect (thanks, Google Earth!), this about the origins of the Carrese od S. Martino in Pensilis.